James Spader reveals why his 'Avengers 2' character hates the Avengers

Now that we know who Ultron is, it’s time to get into his head a little bit.

James Spader came by the EW Hideout at Comic-Con along with his co-stars Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans to talk about the big bad of Avengers: Age of Ultron. Spader talked about the character’s motivations with a calm that unnerved Evans—if Ultron’s voice is anything like Spader’s here, the robot that comes to destroy us all next summer will probably convince us all that his evil plot is good for us.

Watch the video and read a full transcript below.

EW: James Spader, you’re joining the franchise as the titular Ultron character, tell us a little bit about him. He seems like he’s a guy who may come into contention with the Avengers at some point.SPADER: Yeah, I think he sees the Avengers as being part of a problem, a more comprehensive problem in the world. I don’t know, he sees the world from a very strange point of view because he’s brand new, he’s very young. He’s been self-created during the first act of the film, and then he—he sees the world around him from a very biblical point of view. Because he’s been able to upload an enormous amount of intelligence and so on, and that’s also been fed into him as well.

So he’s immature, and yet has knowledge of comprehensive, broad history and precedent, and he has created in a very short period of time a rather skewed worldview. Which is certainly not unprecedented! He’s probably self-absorbed.

EVANS: It’s so great hearing James talk right now. I can just see Ultron and I get scared! [Laughs]

EW: Both of the Chris’s, you guys are coming off of your own movies now. Chris Hemsworth, Thor: The Dark World ended with Thor deciding he’s going all-Earth, all the time now. Where’s Thor at when we find him in Avengers 2?HEMSWORTH: He’s here, part of the team, where we left him in Thor 2. The first film, the first Avengers, was all of this coming together. Now it’s them operating as a team and trying to function and keep it going.

EW: Now are they sending Jane to an island again?EVANS: [Laughs] You ever wonder how they figure out ‘Well why didn’t you call Thor?’ He’s busy!

HEMSWORTH: [Laughs] That’s the problem in every film we have! There’s a massive battle, the world’s at stake—but where’s Captain America and Iron Man and The Hulk when Thor’s on it?

EVANS: Don’t pick up the cell phone!

EW: I think it’s implied they’re kind of feuding at that point. Chris Evans, Captain America: The Winter Soldier—Captain America went through a lot in that film, and I believe he has a new costume in this one.EVANS: [singing] Yeah, they always do the new costumes. It’s too bad, because I really liked the old costume.

EW: Where is he at now, in terms of his development? Winter Soldier had a lot of revelations for him.EVANS: Well he’s a guy who—he’s a soldier. So he’s born into a world of orders and structure, and he likes being kind of a cog. So once S.H.I.E.L.D was kind of destroyed, he’s looking for structure. And now that the Avengers don’t really report to anyone, they report to each other, it’s a different dynamic for him and he’s trying to figure out where he fits in that.

EW: Will there ever be a leader of the Avengers?EVANS: Well you’ll just have to wait and see the movie!

SPADER: Everything you’re talking about is exactly the problem that Ultron perceives, these are all the issues he has [laughs]

EW: So you’re saying Ultron is the hero of the movie?SPADER: I certainly play it that way!